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Rangyayo
General information Phonology Consonants The following are phonemic transcriptions of Rangyan consonants. # /ŋ/ appears only in the syllable coda. # /s, z/ are palatalised ʑ before /i, j/ # /h/ is palatalised ç before /i, j/; and is bilabialised ɸ before /u, w/ # /ts, dz, tsʰ/ are palatalised dʑ, tɕʰ before /i, j/ # /ɾ/ is an alveolar flap ɾ in the syllable onset; and is l in the syllable coda. Vowels Monophthongs # /i/ is pronounced /ɪ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/ # /u/ is /ʊ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/ Diphthongs In the Rangyan language, because semivowels /j/ and /w/ may follow consonants in initial position in a word, which no other consonant can do, and perhaps due also to yenmun orthography, which transcribes them as vowels, they are sometimes considered to be elements of diphthongs and triphthongs rather than separate consonant phonemes. # /ju/ is pronounced /jʊ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/ # /uɪ/ is a falling diphthong uɪ after a consonant in an open syllable; and is a rising diphthong wi when it is a syllable of its own or in a closed syllable. Triphthongs Positional allophones Rangyan consonants have two principal positional allophones: initial and final. The initial form is found at the beginning of a syllable and the final form is found at the end of a syllable. All plosives t, k are unreleased t̚, k̚ at the end of a syllable. Final ɾ is a liquid l. Phonotactics Rangyan syllable structure is maximally CgVC, where the first C'' is the initial consonant; ''g is a semivowel glide /j/ or /w/; V'' is a vowel; the second ''C is a coda. Any consonant but /ŋ/ may occur initially, whereas only /m, n, ŋ, p, t, k, s, l/ may occur finally. Below is the table of all syllable finals (gVC) in Rangyan. # pronounced wi when it is a syllable of its own or before codas /n, t̚, s, l/; and pronounced wɪ before codas /ŋ, k̚/ # pronounced uɪ after an onset in an open syllable. Additional finals /wam/, /wɛm/, /wim/, /wap/, /wɛp/, /wip/ can be found in foreign loanwords. Vowel harmony Traditionally, the Rangyan language has had strong vowel harmony; that is, in pre-modern Rangyan, not only did the inflectional and derivational affixes change in accordance to the main root vowel, but native words also adhered to vowel harmony. However, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Rangyan. In modern Rangyan, it is only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia and interjections. There are three classes of vowels in Rangyan: positive, negative and neutral. The vowel classes loosely follow the vowel heights. Exchanging positive vowels with negative vowels usually creates different nuances of meaning, with positive vowels sounding fast, hot, dry, hard, solid, focused or aggressive, and negative vowels sounding slow, cold, wet, soft, insubstantial, diffuse or tranquil. Pitch accent Rangyan pitch accent can be presented with a two-pitch-level model. In this representation, each syllable is either high (H) or low (L) in pitch. # If the accent is on the first syllable, then the first syllable is high-pitched and the others are low: HLL... # If the accent is on a syllable other than the first, then the first syllable is low, the following syllables up to and including the accented one are high, and the rest are low: LHLL..., LHHLL..., LHHHLL... # If the word does not have an accent, the first syllable is low and the others are high: LHH... This high pitch spreads to unaccented grammatical particles that attach to the end of the word, whereas these would have a low pitch when attached to an accented word. Examples are given in the table below. The number before each pitch pattern tells you the syllable where the last high pitch is. Grammar Word classes and phrase classes Nouns Rangyan has no grammatical number, gender or articles. Thus, Rangyan nouns are non-inflecting. The noun iku ( ) can be translated as "dog", "dogs", "a dog", "the dog", "some dogs" and so forth, depending on context. However, as part of the extensive pair of grammatical systems that Rangyan possesses for honorification and politeness, nouns too can be modified. Nouns take politeness prefix ya-'' ( ) to produce their respectful forms. A few examples are given in the following table. Rangyan does not differentiate between count and mass nouns. A small number of nouns have collectives formed by reduplication, for example, ''oro ( ) "person" and orooro ( ) "people". However, reduplication is not productive. Words in Rangyan referring to more than one of something are collectives, not plurals. Orooro, for example, means "a lot of people" or "people in general". It is never used to mean "two people". A phrase like rangya ti orooro ( ) would be taken to mean "the people of Rangya", or "the population of Rangya", not "two people from Rangya" or even "a few people from Rangya". Lacking grammatical number, the noun haya ( ) may refer to a single bird or several birds. Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word). For example, haya pu ik ( ) means two birds. Pronouns Suffixes are added to pronouns to make them collective, for example, kigomi-te ( ) "we" and asobeda-nün ( ) "they". Reflexive pronouns Rangyan has three reflexive pronouns jishin, jiki and osu, all meaning "self". However, there are subtle differences in usage among the three reflexive pronouns. * jishin ( ) tends to take a local antecedent and is used more often for first person antecedents; * jiki ( ) takes long-distance antecedents much more than local ones; * osu ( ) is less used than the other two and takes local and long-distance antecedents equally well. The antecedent to which it refers can be inferred by context, which is generally the subject of the sentence. The examples below demonstrate the difference in usage between jishin and jiki. Verbs Verbs are the most complex lexical category in Rangyan. Their structure when used as the predicate of a clause is verb stem + up to six suffixes, and can be illustrated with this table. This is a conjugation table for the verb yabü ( ) "eat". Honorific and modality are not included to keep the table shorter. Compound verbs Rangyan has many compound verbs, reflecting the agglutinative nature of the language. A Rangyan compound verb is a multi-word compound that acts as a single verb. The main component of the compound is a verb in its conjunctive participial form, which carries most of the semantics of the compound, and determines its arguments. The other component is a vector, which carries any conjugations, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning. For example, in yuttsubirü ( ) "start reading", the vector verb birü ( ) "start" changes according to tense, mood, aspect, and the like, while the main verb yutts'ü'' ( ) "read" stays in its conjunctive participial form yutts'u'' ( ) "reading" and remains unchanged. Attributive verbs A Rangyan attributive verb is a verb which modifies (gives the attributes of) a noun as an attributive, rather than expressing an independent idea as a predicate. Unlike English, Rangyan allows regular verbs to be attributive. In Rangyan, predicative verbs come at the end of the clause, after the nouns, while attributive verbs come before the noun. These are equivalent to relative clauses in English as Rangyan does not have relative pronouns like "who", "which", or "when". Example: ne oro we dottuwei ( ) "That person came." ne dottuweit oro we ( ) "That person who came" Copula The Rangyan copula rü ( ) is a verb-like word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (a subject complement). Rangyan sentences with rü most often equate one thing with another, that is, they are of the form "A is B". Example: khi we ontso rü ( ) "I am a soldier." Copula rü can also link predicative adjectives to the noun or pronoun they modify. Example: muse we ha'i rü ( ) "Snow is white." Demonstratives Demonstratives occur in the i-'', ''ne-'', and ''ko-'' series. The ''i-'' (proximal) series refers to things closer to the speaker than the hearer, the ''ne-'' (mesial) series for things closer to the hearer, and the ''ko-'' (distal) series for things distant to both the speaker and the hearer. With ''ma-'', demonstratives turn into the corresponding interrogative form. Demonstratives limit, and therefore precede, nouns; thus ''i maro ( ) for "this stone", ne maro ( ) for "that stone", and ko maro ( ) for "that stone over there". Adjectives All Rangyan adjectives end in ''-i'', for example, ko'i ( ) "big" and hyogi ( ) "heavy". Their syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or referent of pronoun. In Rangyan, adjectives form an open class of words, that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as derivation. A given occurrence of a Rangyan adjective can generally be classified into one of the two major kinds of uses: * Attributive adjectives are part of the noun phrase headed by the noun they modify, for example, ko'i is an attributive adjective in ko'i haku ( ) "big cow". Since Rangyan is a head-final language, attributive adjectives always precede their nouns. * Predicative adjectives are linked via a copula to the noun or pronoun they modify, for example, ko'i is a predicate adjective in haku we ko'i rü ( ) "cow is big". Adjective order In Rangyan language, attributive adjectives usually occur in this default order, with other orders being permissible: # demonstrative # intensifier (adverb of degree) # opinion # size # age # shape # colour # proper adjective (e.g. nationality, origin, material) # noun adjunct (noun used as adjective) # head noun Example: i a'i nitsi gani haya ( ) "this good small red bird" Comparative Rangyan adjectives, unlike their English counterparts, do not have a comparative form. To compare two things (NP1 and NP2), the noun phrase being compared (NP2), together with the postpositional comparative particle pe, are placed between the subject noun phrase (NP1) and the predicative adjective in a sentence ended with a copula. Example: ne iku we i haya pe ko'i rü ( ) "That dog is bigger than this bird." Superlative Rangyan adjectives also lack a superlative form. The adverb tsum ( ) "most" is placed before adjectives for superlative degree of comparison. Example: ne iku we tsum ko'i rü ( ) "That dog is the biggest." Adverbs An adverb is any word that modifies verbs, adjectives, clauses, sentenses and other adverbs. Not all but many Rangyan adverbs are formed by adding ''-m'' to adjectives. For example, nepi ( ; "angry") yields nepi'm'' ( ; "angrily") and a'i ( ; "good") yields a'i'm'' ( "well"). This derviation is quite productive but there are a few adjectives from which adverbs may not be derived. Particles Particles in Rangyan are postpositional, as they immediately follow the modified component. Numerals The system of Rangyan numerals is the system of number names used in the Rangyan language. The Rangyan numerals in writing are entirely based on the Chinese numerals and the grouping of large numbers follow the Chinese tradition of grouping by myriads (10000) rather than thousands (1000). Two sets of pronunciations for the numerals exist in Rangyan: one is based on Sino-Rangyan readings of the Chinese characters and the other is based on the native Rangyan readings. The distinction between the two sets of numerals is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two sets, but seldom both. For example, the native Rangyan numerals are used for the hours while the Sino-Rangyan numerals are used to denote the minute of time, therefore, jopu-zhi uzhipruk-pun ( ) means "12:56". The native Rangyan numerals are also used for the five-minute interval of time khük ( ), therefore, he-zhi me-khük ( ) means "8:05" while he-zhi cho-khük ( ) means "8:15". When denoting the age of a person, one will use yumpi ( ) for the native Rangyan numerals, and sei ( ) for Sino-Rangyan. For example, chojohe yumpi ( ) and samzhippat sei ( ) both mean "thirty-eight years old". Basic numbering There are two ways of writing the numbers in Rangyan, in Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) or in Chinese numerals (一, 二, 三). The Arabic numerals are more often used in horizontal writing, and the Chinese numerals are more common in vertical writing. The number 4 is considered unlucky in Rangyan, as 4, pronounced shi in Sino-Rangyan, is a homophone for death ( ). The number 13 is sometimes considered unlucky, though this is a carryover from Western tradition. In large numbers, elements are combined from largest to smallest, and zeros are implied. Decimal fractions Rangyan has a traditional system of numerals for decimal fractions. This system, however, is not often seen in modern usage except for representing decimal fractions of rate or discount. For example, cho-pun tha-ri heirün ( ) "35% discount". Instead, decimal fractions are typically written with either Chinese numerals (in vertical writing) or Arabic numerals (in horizontal writing), preceded by a decimal point, and are read as successive digits, as in Western convention. Note that, in written form, they can be combined with either the traditional system of expressing numerals (42.195 四十二・一九五), in which powers of ten are written, or with the place value system, which uses zero (50.04 五〇・〇四). In both cases, however, the reading follows the traditional system (wijopu tem me kon tha for 42.195; thajo tem moi wi for 50.04). Fractional values To construct a fraction, the denominator is written first, followed by pun ti ( ) "parts of" and then the numerator. This is the opposite of how fractions are read in English, which is numerator first. Each half of the fraction is written the same as a whole number. Mixed numbers are written with the whole-number part first, followed by tu ( ) "and", then the fractional part. Ordinal numbers Ordinal numbers are formed by adding tai ( ) "sequence" before Sino-Rangyan numerals and by adding nal ( ) after native Rangyan numerals. Negative numbers Negative numbers are formed by adding byu ( ) "negative" before the number. Formal numbers As with Chinese numerals, there exists in Rangyan a separate set of hanji for numerals called daishyuji ( ) used in legal and financial documents to prevent unscrupulous individuals from adding a stroke or two, turning a one into a two or a three. The formal numbers are identical to the Chinese formal numbers except for minor stroke variations. In some cases, the digit 1 is explicitly written like for 110, as opposed to in common writing. Sentence and clause patterns Direct speech Direct speech is a sentence (or several sentences) that reports speech or thought in its original form, as phrased by the first speaker. In Rangyan, it is enclosed in quotation marks. The cited speaker is either mentioned or implied. Indirect speech In Rangyan, indirect speech is not enclosed in quotation marks, and does not phrase the reported statement or question the way the original speaker did; instead, person is changed when the person speaking and the person quoting the speech are different. Writing system The modern Rangyan writing system uses two main scripts: * Hanji ( ), ideographs from Chinese characters, and * Yenmun ( ), a Korean phonemic alphabet organised into syllabic blocks that make up words. To a lesser extent, modern written Rangyan also uses the Latin alphabet. Examples include abbreviations such as "CD" and "DVD". Romanised Rangyan, called romaji ( ), is frequently used by foreign students of Rangyan, who have not yet mastered the two main scripts, and by native speakers for computer input. Usage of scripts Hanji Yenmun Yenmun is a phonemic alphabet organized into syllabic blocks. Each block consists of at least two of the 24 yenmun letters (jimu), with at least one each of the 14 consonants and 10 vowels. These syllabic blocks can be written horizontally from left to right as well as vertically from top to bottom in columns from right to left. Originally, the alphabet had several additional letters for pre-modern Korean, however, these letters have never been used in Rangyan. Jimu Jimu ( ) are the units that make up the yenmun alphabet. Ji means letter or character, and mo means mother, so the name suggests that the jimu are the building-blocks of the script. There are 39 jimu, of which 24 are equivalent to letters of the Latin alphabet. The other 15 jimu are clusters of two or sometimes three of these letters. Of the 24 simple jimu, 14 are consonants ( ; "child sounds") and 10 are vowels ( ; "mother sounds"). 5 of the simple consonant letters are doubled to form the five voiced consonants (see below). The 10 basic vowel jimu can be combined to form 10 more complex ones. Here is a summary: :* 14 simple consonant letters: ㄱ, ㅋ, ㅇ, ㄷ, ㅌ, ㄴ, ㅂ, ㅍ, ㅁ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅅ, ㅎ, ㄹ :* 5 double letters (voiced): ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅉ, ㅆ :* 6 simple vowel letters: ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ, ㅜ, ㅡ, ㅣ :* 4 simple iotized vowel letters (semi consonant-semi vowel): ㅑ, ㅕ, ㅛ, ㅠ :* 10 compound letters: ㅐ, ㅒ, ㅔ, ㅖ, ㅘ, ㅙ, ㅚ, ㅝ, ㅞ, ㅟ Four of the simple vowel jimu are derived by means of a short stroke to signify iotation (a preceding i sound): ㅑ /ja/, ㅕ /jɛ/, ㅛ /jɔ/, and ㅠ /ju/. These four are counted as part of the 24 simple jimu because the iotating stroke taken out of context does not represent /j/. In fact, there is no separate jimu for /j/. Of the simple consonants, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ are aspirated derivatives of ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ, respectively, formed by combining the unaspirated letters with an extra stroke. The doubled letters are ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅉ, ㅆ. Double jimu do not represent geminate consonants, but rather a voiced phonation. Jimu order The alphabetical order of yenmun does not mix consonants and vowels as Western alphabets do. Rather, the order is that of the Indic type, first velar consonants, then coronals, labials, sibilants, etc. However, the vowels come after the consonants rather than before them as in the Indic systems. Historical order The consonantal order of yenmun in 1446 in the document titled Funmintsengim ( ) "The Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People" was, ㄱ ㅋ ㆁ ㄷ ㅌ ㄴ ㅂ ㅍ ㅁ ㅈ ㅊ ㅅ ㆆ ㅎ ㅇ ㄹ ㅿ and the order of vowels was, ㆍ ㅡ ㅣ ㅗ ㅏ ㅜ ㅓ ㅛ ㅑ ㅠ ㅕ Modern Rangyan order In the Rangyan order, double jimu are placed immediately after their single counterparts. No distinction is made between silent and nasal ㅇ: ㄱ ㄲ ㅋ ㅇ ㄷ ㄸ ㅌ ㄴ ㅂ ㅃ ㅍ ㅁ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅅ ㅆ ㅎ ㄹ ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅣ The modern monophthongal vowels come first, with the derived forms interspersed according to their form: first added i, then iotized, then iotized with added i. Diphthongs and triphthongs beginning with w are ordered according to their spelling, as ㅏ or ㅓ plus a second vowel, not as separate digraphs. The order of the final jimu is, (null) ㄱ ㅇ ㄷ ㄴ ㅂ ㅁ ㅅ ㄹ "Null" stands for no final jimu, and the final jimu ㅅ and ㄹ can only be found in foreign loanwords. Direction of writing Written language reforms Romanisation There are a number of methods of rendering Rangyan in Roman letters. The Mackenzie method of romanisation makkhenzhi-sik romaji ( ), designed for English speakers, is a de facto standard widely used inside and outside Rangya. External links * Rangyayo audio sample 01 on Youtube * Rangyayo featured in Conlangery #05: Scripts and Writing on Conlangery Podcast * Discussion of Rangyayo on Zompist bboard Category:Languages Category:Conlangs